The Seven Chakras
by islandofhopex
Summary: Four nations, seven chakras, and seven people who can never seem to master theirs. Appearances from Jet, Kuzon, Hahn, Teo, Longshot, Song, and June. Rated for allusions to mental illness and sexual abuse.


"_The earth chakra deals with survival and is blocked by fear."_

To his fellow Freedom Fighters, Jet was fearless. Even if you put a knife to his throat, he wouldn't flinch. It wouldn't be such a bad thing if only the people around him were deluded, but Jet himself was just as convinced—if not moreso. He did what he had to do to get by and ignored any whisper of fear. If Jet didn't acknowledge it, he was sure it wouldn't be there. If he didn't cry for his parents, he wouldn't miss them. If he didn't express his fear of dying without making a difference, he wouldn't have to worry about it. Not even on his death day did Jet break the façade.

"_The water chakra deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt."_

Kuzon wasn't anyone special. He wasn't a war hero, nor an exiled traitor. He only truly felt alive when he was playing around with his friend. When tragedy struck, it became evident that even friendship wasn't enough to make a hero out of a coward. Kuzon ran from both sides. He hid in neutral Earth Kingdom territory, busying himself with mindless games of Pai Sho and rides on the elephant koi. None of this was ever enough to rid him of the guilt. He'd abandoned both his blood family and his spiritual one, but there was no way to go back.

_"The fire chakra deals with willpower and is blocked by shame."_

When asked about himself, Hahn couldn't honestly tell you anything from before his teenage years. The tribe's best healer had come out to block Hahn's childhood from memory. Gone was the sputtering, inconsolable boy who'd been touched by his father in all the wrong ways and finally dunked him into the water. That boy was replaced by a slime ball who fought his way up the social ladder. Although he couldn't remember why he felt the incessant need for power, he still put his all into it. And yet, Hahn died an annoyance that was soon forgotten.

_"The air chakra deals with love and is blocked by grief."_

In his early days, Teo breezed through the air temples with as much innocence as a newborn. You wouldn't even realize how much he'd lost until someone told you. Although he missed his mom, his remaining friends and family more than made up for it. Only when his father began to lose his mind did he learn true loneliness. Teo had always admired his father's genius (and sometimes wacky) ways, but after an experiment went wrong, the mechanist's little quirks went away, replaced by a man who barely knew where he was. With both parents lost, the boy considered love nothing but a cruel fantasy. It lifted you up, then let you fall on your face.

_"The sound chakra deals with truth and is blocked by lies."_

Because of his silence, many assumed Longshot was a wise, all-knowing genius. Although he never challenged the idea, they were dead wrong. He was like any other traumatized war victim—only it numbed him. His family had been as far from loving as it could get, so when they died, he wasn't even sure _what_ to feel. The fire suffocated his throat in more ways than one. Longshot went through the motions, telling himself that as long as he didn't scream, he wouldn't feel it. In the end, he was just as deluded by his lies as Jet. But numbness worked wonders on hiding things.

_"The light chakra deals with insight and is blocked by illusion."_

Song was known as the reliable one. She stuck by you, even when the walls were caving in. What even she failed to see was that that wasn't always a good thing. She was hopelessly captured by the illusion of being able to fix everyone who walked into her life. If someone was fatally ill, she'd spend the night at their bedside, believing that they'd make it—and certainly not pass the illness on in the process. If someone was yelling at her so loudly that their lungs seemed to be giving out, she'd still smile at them the next day, sure that kindness would change them eventually. It took landing in the hospital herself to open Song's eyes.

_"The thought chakra deals with pure cosmic energy and is blocked by earthly attachments."_

As soon as June was old enough to think, it occurred to her that she looked nothing like her parents. The poor things were then given the painful job of relaying how her mother tried to kill her, so she was quickly handed over to adoption services. This, combined with her "parents'" distance, imprinted one thing on June's mind: Attachment was deadly. She spent life on the move, thinking herself stronger for her flighty, indifferent attitude. June never grasped the fact that you needed attachment in order to make things worthwhile—you just couldn't let it overcome you.


End file.
